Evidence that creative use of ILT helps disengaged learners

This piece has been extracted from the excellent Merlin John's blog. www.merlinjohnonline.net

Pro0f that Creative ICT helps the most disengaged learners

There are some basic truths in education and here’s one. You can’t learn or teach successfully unless you are prepared to take chances: and you can’t take chances unless you have confidence.And the relevance of this? A new study, carried out on Becta’s behalf in 10 UK special schools by University of Liverpool researchers, found that creative use of ICT is a powerful tool in helping children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties to experience the successes that can give them the confidence to engage with their teachers and their education.

Enhanced engagement, motivation, co-operation, collaboration and achievement were all observed.It’s something that has long been obvious to some educators, but it took headteacher at Rush Hall School, John d’Abbro, who has pioneered creative work with his own students using state-of-the-art ICT tools from Apple for digital video, animation, music and podcasting, to set up a national research project with support from Apple and Canon.

And he is delighted that some of the insights he has gained from his own experiences have been confirmed by the findings of the researchers. It is backed up with extensive, revealing video interviews with learners, teachers and parents (see student Samantha Bell, above, on her Anne Frank project, and teacher Jan Kirkham, below, on the importance of self-esteem).

(Just go to the blog to see the videos ..... jonathan)